


No Shouting Before Sunrose

by SamsBee



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, What goes on in the Oh No Van
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 12:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamsBee/pseuds/SamsBee
Summary: Amanda had decided she loved winter in the van.





	No Shouting Before Sunrose

**Author's Note:**

> First fic I've written in a very long time and thank you @setmeatopthepyre for being a total star and helping me keep my rampant use of commas in check and basically picking the title.

Amanda had decided she loved winter in the van.

 

Not because of the near constant cold; not because their free roaming was halted by ice and snow and general shit weather, and good  _ god _ it was definitely not the winter hygiene  because the rowdies silently agreed they'd all rather smell than take their clothes off to wash in the rivers and streams they would happily paddle around in during summer.

 

Nope. None of that.

 

What Amanda loved was the quiet, slow way each morning started. Not that summer was particularly noisy – maybe more energetic, which she supposed with The Rowdy 3 kind of instantly equated to more noise – but winter mornings just seemed...special. Soft.

 

Amanda's Old Life – capitalised as it was in her mind, a distinct difference between two separate chapters in the same story – was a grey memory of pain and lonely helplessness that could drag her down under a tide of misery if she lingered on the thought. Depressing. Very depressing. Her New Life was fast and loud and chaotic in a way that splintered her with happiness and almost unravelled her soul with its possibilities. Then there were these mornings. This moment, each day, felt like the only time everything was still and thoughtful; the quiet reflection that filled the gaps between pain in her Old Life mixed with the boundless happiness that coloured almost every part of her New Life; the morning was a chain of events never the exact same but following a predictable pattern.

 

It would start with the light. A thin wash of pink rays would leak in from the windows and warm her face, waking her gently with a feeling like someone running the backs of their fingers across her cheekbones. Amanda would open her eyes and relish the closeness around her, air thick and warm as treacle, on a nest of cushions and pillows and under a patchwork of criss-crossing blankets and duvets. Here Amanda would fall into a semi-conscious doze, feeling as close to a puppy as she was ever likely to – warm, comfortable, safe, physically aware of the warm bodies around her and soothed by the sound of breathing and quiet sleepy noises – and if she cleared her mind Amanda could feel the gentle tug of the universe. She felt weightless, like the universe had coated her in a thin, tingly mist with the sensation of  _ something _ that could lift her and float her to wherever she needed to be.

 

The next link in the chain of events was Martin.

 

For a long time there was an unacknowledged pattern to the way the rowdies slept: Martin by the back doors, Cross at the side door and Gripps behind the front seats. A protective formation. Occasionally the positions switched but what never changed was Amanda and Vogel in the middle, the safest place they could possibly be. When Beast joined she was a wild card; some nights she'd take over one of the exits, sometimes she'd sleep in the passenger seat and some nights she'd hunker down between Amanda and Vogel and practically purr herself to sleep. Beast was not listed in the same protected category that Amanda found herself in and for some reason this realisation had stung Amanda like a physical slap; a sudden flush of embarrassed shame and a prickling of hurt. Of course the boys had all felt this moment of realisation, this sudden flood of wrong emotions but not a molecule of Amanda's outer demeanour had even flickered and she'd smothered the feeling so quickly her rowdies were forced to assume they'd made a mistake. They weren't stupid and they knew what they felt but it was trick Amanda had found could make all the difference between her boys thinking she'd remembered something embarrassing or knowing she'd had a devastating revelation.

 

She had brought up the sleeping arrangements eventually, nervous, muscles occasionally twitching in a shiver because she thought hearing out loud that her family thought she was still the weak girl she used to be, a weak link when she had finally found so much of her strength, could break something in her heart. Nervous too, because without fail Amanda woke beside Martin, and if it was all a coincidence and something she drew attention to that could stop.

 

Whatever conversation Amanda had expected to have with the bleach blonde, she hadn't expected the surprised look that flashed almost imperceptibly across Martin's face. He'd taken a long drag on his cigarette for a few quiet moments before responding.

 

“I guess, after Blackwing...” he'd started and then paused and taken another long draw on his cigarette before starting again, “Maybe we've been worried about waking up and finding ourselves without you both.”

 

Amanda had felt another, less aggressive pang of embarrassment. She'd been so worried they thought she was weaker, was less than they were, when really none of them were over what had happened before Wendimoor. They were closer than before, stronger as a unit, even with the relative mystery of Beast, and still they all quietly feared being ripped apart again. Oh.

 

“No one thinks you're weak, Drummer,” Martin had continued, replying to words she hadn't spoken and giving her a look that said even more than the words did, “But we can ease off some.”

 

Something between them had clicked into place then, something the polar opposite of Amanda's panic at losing her sleeping companion. An understanding or a realisation, knowing now that they slept beside each other out of choice, because that's where they both wanted to be and not out of some pack mentality need for Martin had to protect her, had Amanda dropping a wall she hadn't known was there.

 

So when Amanda - from her position beside the back doors because it turned out that all Martin meant by 'easing off a bit' was that sometimes  _ she _ could guard the doors - arms curled to her chest and forehead resting against Martin's back, sensed the older man break the surface of consciousness, she expected for him to roll over and slip his arms around her waist. He pulled her flush against him, nose burying into her hair and the smallest hum of happiness escaping him. Amanda sighed and tilted her head back ever so slightly, looking up into sleepy blue eyes that managed to be extremely, brightly awake and half lidded tired at the same time. And  _ really  _ maybe this was part of why she liked winter mornings too. In their sleepy van Amanda got to see this man - this breathing, pulsing representation of her New Life - without smoke and leather and before that shell coating of control had slipped into place. Just him. Dishevelled and comfortable and undeniably content. 

 

He stroked her hair, she kissed his jaw, he pulled her closer into the space between them she hadn't thought still existed, legs tangling. Fingers trailed along her spine, hands smoothed over his chest and the world shrank away to nothing but soft lips, softer breaths and achingly slow, leisurely kisses.

 

And that was usually when Cross woke up.

 

Before, once or twice, Amanda had tried to put into words the immeasurable adoration she felt for the rowdies. The love, the loyalty and the ever present gratitude that coloured everything they did with a rose-tinted-glasses haze. She'd failed spectacularly at getting it into words, yet alone a sentence. They were her family and her salvation but Amanda could honestly strangle Cross for his impeccably awful timing.

 

Cross had a bloodhound-like ability to sniff out an intimate moment and ruin it. Amanda was sure it was unintentional, but anytime she found herself entirely alone with Martin - which was rare enough - or even in the sort of intimate embrace they were currently wrapped in she could almost count down the seconds before Cross would appear. Sometimes he'd waggle his eyebrows and grin, often he would saunter over and sit down, totally oblivious that he might be interrupting something, and occasionally he would throw Amanda over his shoulder with a whoop that instantly summoned Vogel and Gripps and had Beast hopping excitedly around them in a thrall of excitement.

 

So Amanda really should have been prepared as she tangled herself up with Martin as thoroughly as she could, enjoying the press of lips and murmured words and shivers and long lazy touches, that they were already on borrowed time.

 

It was as she gave a soft, delighted sigh, her hand running over an expanse of taught muscled back and Martin returning from nipping at her neck for another languid kiss that Amanda felt a large hand wrap around her ankle. She pulled her mouth away from Martin just in time as Cross gave her ankle a quick yank. Amanda yelped, Cross barked a laugh, Martin grunted a noise that managed to sound both irritated and affectionate.

 

The man was often oblivious but this time of day was not naïve enough that he couldn't guess what had been going on. So, possibly just to remind them he was awake now and also a contender for attention, Cross yanked Amanda's ankle again, causing another squeak and inadvertently pulling Amanda firmly into Martin's crotch. Martin's hand snapped to her hip to hold her still and his face buried back into her hair muttering something that sounded a lot like “ _ killing _ me.”

 

Cue Gripps.

 

The sweetest member of The 3 sat bolt upright with his eyes still closed, so snugly fit into a sleeping bag that he looked like a cocoon, beanie still firmly in place on his head, “No shrieking before sunrise,” he announced, “I'm a sleepy guy.”

 

“There's light out, it's already sunrise,” Cross replied in a stage whisper, sprawled out flat on his back, arms above his head. He abandoned Amanda's foot to give the back of Martin's calf a punch.

 

“It's still rising,” Gripps replied before flopping back down, “No shouting before sunrose,”

 

“Sunrose isn't a thing.”

 

“Is too. Sundown, Sunrise, Sunrose.”

 

“That's dumb, when's night time?”

 

“Moonup!”

 

Amanda felt the tingle of the universe sharpen for a moment, spurred on by the rapidly increasing daylight or the noise or the sudden spiral from slow haze to good-natured bickering, and then it seemed to slip away, back to a distant whisper she could almost miss. She tilted her head to look up at Martin and grinned, his eyes were closed again, but as if he could feel her smile, or maybe he too felt the universe ebb away, he slid his hand from her hip and back down to the small of her back, fingers pressing in a gentle massage, “You woke 'em up,” he half murmured, half growled.

 

“Moonup isn't a thing either!” Cross and Gripps continued.

 

“You moved first,” Amanda whispered as she stretched up and planted another warm, sleepy kiss on his mouth. Martin's hand on her back tightened, his other hand tangling in her hair as he caught Amanda's bottom lip between his teeth briefly, released it with a kiss and moved quickly away to press a series of hungry, nipping kisses against her throat. Fuck yes. Amanda let out a surprised, breathless gasp and Gripps and Cross immediately stopped arguing.

 

“I hear kissing.”

 

Enter Vogel.

 

“Gross! Kissing! Ew!” In Vogel's frantic attempt to get out from under his blanket pile he managed to kick Amanda in the shin and knee Martin in the back. Freed, Vogel sat up and was instantly hit full in the face by a cushion Cross had hurled. Vogel made a thudding sound as he was propelled back down. Feathers erupted into the air. Cross cackled.

 

“Kissing for breakfast,” Gripps giggled from his cocoon.

 

Vogel bounced back up almost instantly. “Bleurgh! Kissing isn't breakfast. Pancakes are breakfast!” The smaller man's face appeared over Martin's shoulder, alarmingly close to Amanda's face and she had to blink to bring him into sudden focus, “Boss can we get pancakes?!”

 

Amanda looked back at Martin with an expression somewhere between an apology and a hunger that was equally for Martin and pancakes. Martin sighed and rolled onto his back, Vogel flopping over the bigger man's stomach and eliciting and  _ oomf _ as he wormed closer to Amanda.

 

That was usually around when all the wiggling and bickering would wake up Beast.

 

“I could eat pancakes,” Cross announced.

 

“I want eggs. The hard ones you have to smash open!”

 

“Eggs?! Eggs aren't sweet,” Vogel sounded horrified.

 

“I'll put syrup on 'em,” Gripps compromised.

 

“Breakfast can be not sweet,” Cross frowned kicking his legs in the air, trying to remove the cover that was tangled between his feet and suddenly there was a flash of colour and Beast caught his legs like a cat, sinking teeth quickly into a calf before bouncing off and rolling into a ball beside Gripps.

 

“Hey-lo,” she beamed, managing to make the greeting sound like two separate words.

 

After that everything descended into a pandemonium of shouting about breakfast foods and throwing pillows. Amanda spared one last look at Martin, who returned the gaze and Amanda was sure that for a moment they had the same thought, the same already fuzzy memory of light pink edges, warm touches and thoughtful silences. Then the moment was over.

 

Finished with her morning pow-wow with the universe (and Martin's face), Amanda launched her full weight at Vogel before Martin flipped the pair of them over and proceeded, with help from Cross, to bury them in blankets. Gripps the cocoon hurled himself into the stream of cushions Martin was pouring on the smallest rowdies and Beast bounced excitedly from one side of the van to another, throwing anything she came across into the fray.

 

And just like that everything was back to loud and fast and chaotic.

  
  



End file.
